5 Answers
5

First of all, don't rely on Google Translate. Its translations are not the only ones possible, nor always correct.

In your case, the verb to be (in the meaning of "at a place") can be translated with the German verb sein, which is the same verb, and liegen, which literally means "lie" and has the same meaning here. Both translations are equally correct.

Oh I certainly agree about Google translate. I knew it wasn't perfect but I have to admit, it seems like a pretty good system for free. lol. But then again, this is why I am hiring a real tutor. :-)
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cbmeeksJul 10 '11 at 14:46

@cbmeeks I use Google translator too (mostly German / English <-> Chinese), and I found out that it has problems with sentences that use rather complex grammatical forms. Beware of that!
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FUZxxlJul 10 '11 at 14:48

Thanks. Oh, I certainly don't take it as the best/only way. However, do you find the accent to be correct? In other words, is it useful for learning how to pronounce German words?
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cbmeeksJul 10 '11 at 14:50

1

@cbmeeks Don't rely on it. The pronounciation is sometimes quite weird, because the engine infers it from the orthography. Ask your tutor instead ;)
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FUZxxlJul 10 '11 at 14:55

1

@FUZxxl: liegen literally means lie and it is legen that means lay. The simple past tense of lie is lay,=German lag. This is rather confusing and even anglophones make mistakes in that context. My mnemonic for keeping things straight is to remember the title of Faulkner's novel As I lay dying
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Georges ElencwajgJul 10 '11 at 21:00

There's only a very slight difference, if any. Using the verb "sein" may be a little bit colloquial, since it has a very broad meaning. "Liegen", however, bears reference of a static, spatial meaning, often used in a geographic context:

"Paris liegt in Frankreich"

sounds better than

"Paris ist in Frankreich".

But you can use "liegen" in this sense only for static facts, especially not regarding human individuals.

"Mein Kollege Erich liegt gerade in Frankreich"

would sound somewhat weird, maybe bearing the connotation "he isn't working very hard there, lounging in the sun all the time".

Regarding a hotel, "liegen" is completely okay, especially in written language. A native speaker would probably prefer "sein" in everyday language when describing the way to the hotel (as in your example).

However, he will prefer "liegen" if he wants to describe its ambience and environment: "Das Hotel liegt mitten in der Altstadt, umgeben von Palmen". Using "sein" in this context would be a stylistic inconsistency in my opinion.

Agree with this answer much more than with FUZxxl's. There is a strong tendency in German (in contrast to English) to avoid simple words like "sein" and "haben", therefore "liegen" is typically better than "sein" for locations, with the latter being more colloquial (like tohuwawohu (shouldn't that be Tohuwabohu, by the way?) explained, though not wrong. Also +1 for the example with Erich. This may also mean that he's dead ;)
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OregonGhostJul 10 '11 at 17:34

@OregonGhost - ok, that would be another "static" meaning ;) btw, you're right, it's a 'b' written - 'w' is some sort of phonetic transcription :)
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tohuwawohuJul 10 '11 at 19:16

@OregonGhost,@tohuwawohu : it should indeed be tohuwawohu. The second sentences of Genesis begins in transliteration as: Veha'arets hayetah tohuvavohu .Here is the interesting link from which I copied that mb-soft.com/believe/txw/bereshi2.htm (However in French it is indeed tohu-bohu)
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Georges ElencwajgJul 10 '11 at 21:30

@Georges Elencwajg: I guess that's what tohuwawohu meant with the phonetic transcription. The German word, however, is Tohuwabohu.
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OregonGhostJul 10 '11 at 21:30

@OregonGhost: ah, your comment was posted while I was modifying mine. I didn't know the word tohuwabohu existed in German, but as I just wrote in my modified comment, it is tohu-bohu in French too.Interesting, thanks. Anyway, I find the fate of these wandering loan-words fascinating (but to tell the truth I find everything about languages fascinating...)
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Georges ElencwajgJul 10 '11 at 21:51

Of course you can justify these uses after the fact but I find these expressions rather unpredictable from pure logic. So what should non native speakers do? As usual with foreign languages: use dictionaries and read a lot !

I just want to add some additional meaning: If someone says: "Das Hotel ist gleich um die Ecke", then this has a total different meaning. It just means that the Hotel is very near - but not necessarily around a corner.

I know this phrase only with "gleich" in it - but I can not say whether in some other places in Germany "Das Hotel ist um die Ecke" can have the same meaning.